


Like it's her birthday

by Budapest_All_Over_again



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Budapest_All_Over_again/pseuds/Budapest_All_Over_again
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James thinks it's Lily's birthday. The other Marauders think it's far too funny to tell him otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like it's her birthday

James Potter knew he was in trouble.

When you spend four years chasing after a particular girl, start dating her, and then forget her birthday… well, let’s just say Lily was not going to be a happy chappy.

That probably explained why a certain messy-haired Quidditch Captain was hiding in the shadows outside the Entrance Hall, as far away from the Gryffindor Common Room and the Library as possible (Lily’s favourite haunts) as he tried to think of something he could do to remedy this situation.

He’d persuaded the Headmaster to allow a Hogsmeade excursion on Valentine’s Day, two weeks later. Unfortunately for James, in his hurry to get Lily’s Valentine surprise ready, the fact that her birthday was approaching flew right over his head. And judging by the way Lily hadn’t talked to him all day, she was ever so slightly annoyed.

She never gave anyone the silent treatment. Well, Lily hadn’t exactly spoken to Snape since he called her the M-word at the end of fifth year, but James didn’t really want to compare himself to that.

He slumped against a wall in a hunched sitting position, head in his hands. He’d blown it. James had put years of effort into this girl, into pursuing her, wooing her, and it was all going to be over.

As he started to bang his head against the concrete walls, the remaining three Marauders turned the corner and spotted him. “Mate, we’ve been looking for you everywhere. There’s something we need to tell you,” Sirius said, running over.

“I’m good, thanks for asking. Just... y’know. Resigned to my fate of being torn apart limb from limb by the girl of my dreams.” James gave his comrades a sad smile, before fidgeting with his wand.

“James, this is important. Hear us out, please.” Remus, ever the voice of reason, knelt down beside the moping teenager. Peter looked at Sirius and Remus, confused. It wasn’t hard to tell that he’d been left out of the loop.

“Nah,” came the muffled response from James as he ran his hands over his face.

“You can’t sit here forever. I mean, the snow season’s nearly over. You don’t have very long to enjoy it,” Peter offered, hoping he could help. His face was still slightly flushed from the search for James.

James slowly turned his head to face Peter, a smile starting to form on his lips. “Pete, mate, you’re a genius.”

Sirius’ jaw dropped in mock horror. “He’s gone insane! Moony, help him!”

Remus just rolled his eyes. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that, Prongs. Why is Peter a genius?”

James jumped up, and started sprinting towards the Great Hall. Sirius looked at Remus and shrugged. “Beats me…” he murmured, watching James sprint back to them, grab his wand, and run off again.

Remus looked slyly at his friends. “Do you reckon we should tell him it’s not her birthday till next week?”

Sirius leaned over and patted the lycanthrope on the back. “I reckon we’ve been a bad influence on you… I like it.”

* * *

 

An hour later, James was nowhere to be seen. The three remaining Marauders had given up the search for their friend and retired to the Great Hall for dinner. As they began to dig in to the food, a certain redhead takes an empty seat beside Remus.

“Is there a reason why James hasn’t said hello all day?” Lily asked casually, dishing some mashed potato onto her plate.

Sirius smirked at her from across the table. “I’m assuming by ‘said hello’ you mean ‘snogged me at every opportune time in front of the entire school’.” He took the glare she sent in his direction to be a yes. Remus, sensing trouble, put his head down and kept eating, ignoring the conversation. “Well, he thinks it’s your birthday today. And he only ‘realised’ this after breakfast, so…” he trailed off, allowing Lily to come to her own conclusion.

“So basically my boyfriend thinks I want to kill him?”

“That seems like a pretty accurate summary, yes.”

There was a slight pause in which Sirius and Peter trembled under the gaze of a very, very annoyed redhead. Peter quickly jumped up and said, “I need to check my Astronomy essay!” before running off into the distance.

Sirius shook his head and smiled meekly at a very upset-looking Lily. “Sorry…?”

“You’d better be. Sirius, you are an incredible moron when it comes to your friends. He’s probably freaking out right now!” She rubbed her temples with the heel of each hand, trying to calm herself down. “I have to go talk to him.” She swung her legs over the bench and made for the door.

As she stood up, a fresh swarm of students entered the hall. “C’mon Lily-flower, please sit down,” Sirius pleaded, pouting at her. “Think about how funny it will be when he realises that it’s not-”

Before he could finish his sentence, a large voice caught the attention of the entire hall. “Can you all hear me?” As every student craned their necks towards the source of the noise, Sirius let out a bark of laughter while Remus grinned to himself at the awfully familiar voice.

James stood at the end of one of the other house tables, where a few nearby Hufflepuffs were looking very disgruntled at the loudness of James’ voice. “You can? Good. As you all must know by now, I’m currently dating a lovely Miss Lily Evans.” He gestured vaguely towards the Gryffindor table, where Lily put her head in her hands, visibly torn between hiding under the table and laughing at her boyfriend’s antics.

“But what some of you probably don’t know is that it is her birthday today.” The prefects and a few Gryffindor friends of Lily’s looked at him, confused, as he paused for dramatic effect. “And I’ve organised a little treat for everyone in celebration.” He spun around from the student body, looking a rather embarrassed Lily in the eyes.

“Lils, you once told me that this hall,” he said, pointing to their surroundings, “was your favourite part about the whole castle because it was your first real memory of Hogwarts. You also said that the day it first snowed here in first year was the first time you realised you’d not rather be anywhere else.”

“So I decided to combine the two moments for you. Because birthdays are meant to be special for when you get old and crusty and can barely remember what your teenage years were like – you just look back at your special days like this and you know it was brilliant.”

As he said that last word, his smile widened (if that was possible) as he whipped his wand from his back pocket and quickly muttered a few incantations. When he stopped, everyone was looking at him curiously.

Their attention was diverted ten seconds later by a Ravenclaw letting out a yelp. “What the… What was that?” the girl brushed her shoulder with a hand, looking awfully confused. A few others patted their hair as something wet hit the top of their heads.

Snow fell from the ceiling onto the students, most of whom seemed quite amused by the interruption to dinner. The crowd was laughing, while some were frantically trying to collect enough snow to throw snowballs at each other.

While Lily was watching the snow fall, James snuck through the students and crept up behind her. Wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, he brushed her hair away from the side of face, reaching around to kiss her cheek. “Like what you see?”

She jumped, clutching her chest. Turning around to face him, his arms still wrapped around her, she caught her breath. “That was cruel, sneaking up on me like that.” She stuck her tongue out at him, struggling to suppress a laugh.

“Tut-tut, that’s not a particularly mature thing for a Head Girl to say now, is it?” She laughed, and he couldn’t help but join her.

“Now… I do believe that the birthday girl usually gets a kiss, yes?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him in an impersonation of Moaning Myrtle.

“Has there been any time when I have refused you a kiss? Honestly, it's as though you don't know me,” he teased. Grinning, he leaned closer to her and-

Sirius, who had been watching this exchange between the couple, turned away to give them some privacy. “Oi! Moony!” Remus, who had been looking at the snow with a childish look of glee on his face, turned at the call of his nickname. “I honestly don’t think the Slytherins have enough snow over on that side of the hall, yeah?”

Remus raised an eyebrow, hiding a smile. “I don’t really think that would be appropria-”

“It’s snowing in the Great Hall, your argument is invalid.”

The sandy-blonde shook his head, letting out a sigh of concession, smile growing across his face. “Fine. Blizzard or avalanche?”

“Avalanche,” Sirius replied with a nod of his head.

As Remus searched for his wand amongst all the textbooks in his satchel, Sirius looked up at the snow one more time, a proud smile lighting up his face. “Prongs, mate, you never could do anything by halves,” he murmured to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Like it's her birthday', by Good Charlotte.  
> Anything you recognise is not mine.
> 
> For the lovely Kitty132383 on ff.net ^^


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